Epilogue
Before the drive to Freak Camp, Toby, Jake and Roger had discussed the importance of keeping the lowest of profiles afterward.
Like, low enough to be subterranean. But of all the going to ground options, they ultimately agreed it was best just to return to Boulder.
The delivery guy from the best Chinese place knew them, and it wasn’t like their neighbors would be more surprised to see them back from the road at this time than any other.
Roger had connected them with a doctor whose Idaho clinic was open after-hours for a specific kind of cash-carrying clientele, and he did a brusque but thorough job of fixing up Jake’s arm and scalp wound, no questions asked.
They paid him in cash, and after a few days recuperating in a cabin for which Roger had given them a key, they headed back to Colorado.
They stayed holed up in their apartment for about a week, just long enough for Jake’s arm to improve from really fucking painful even with the good drugs to really fucking painful, and he was starting to feel twitchy.
“Hey, Toby. Want to grab a burger someplace?”
Toby looked at him, his expression inscrutable.
He’d been quieter since they’d done it, since they’d fucking blown that hellhole apart, and Jake didn’t want to push.
He hadn’t been able to push, not with sleeping most of the day and trying to breathe through a fuckton of pain during the rest of it.
He’d had bullet wounds and broken arms before, but never at the same time, and the head injury hadn’t fucking helped.
It had been hard to eat, piss, or do anything without wanting to throw up.
But he was feeling a thousand percent better, and it would be awesome to get out of the house. And maybe find a way to ask Toby if that haunted, distant look in his eyes was a good thing (fuck, it would take anyone time to process what they had done, let alone someone with Toby’s history).
“Do you think that’s a good idea?” Toby’s tone was even, nonjudgmental, but Jake was reminded of one teacher in middle school who had liked giving oral quizzes where every kid in class had had to answer at least one question.
It was a tone that said there was a right answer, but Toby was far from convinced that Jake knew what it was.
Jake bristled, as much as the cast allowed. “C’mon, Toby. They didn’t get a shot of our faces, they didn’t get a shot of the Honda, and if anyone had recognized us by now they would’ve knocked down our door. You know they would have.”
The “Bombing of FREACS” had eclipsed all other news for the last week.
Overhead helicopter shots of the walls burning, closer looks at the devastation inside.
Jake didn’t have a single fucking regret about burning that place to the ground, but he had a suspicion that those shots of charred bones and viscera-splattered rubble would join his nightmare fodder anyway.
He understood now why Toby had watched all those news reports when people had first talked about checking the ASC’s power.
There was something addictive about the coverage, watching for any telltale hint of the truth finally coming out.
Of course, Jake was watching for their names, faces, any sign that the news and investigators were turning their attention to the Hawthornes.
Not a peep so far. Alice had done a fucking brilliant job of spinning the story, he had to admit.
The press conference she had given just two days after the attack had been downright cold-blooded.
According to Alice Dixon, Acting ASC Director, Jonah Dixon’s own unauthorized experiments within Freak Camp had been the fatal error that simultaneously led to his own destruction and obliterated decades of work.
Everyone bought it. Even the fucking President.
Her own address to the nation had called for an extensive review of the ASC’s internal workings and a freeze on any more spending, let alone rebuilding efforts, until her newly commissioned investigation ran its course.
Jake would have worried about that investigation, but Alice had basically been a first-round draft pick for the committee.
Which brought them back to the pros and cons of leaving the apartment for some grub. Toby sighed. “Maybe that pizza place?”
Jake perked up. “Slice of Heaven? That would do wonders for my health, I promise you.”
He had to eat his words, as well as a double slice of Everything but the Kitchen Sink, by the time they got to Slice of Heaven. Even the short walk from their car left his arm achy and the rest of him shaky and ill, like he’d had a fucking bullet pass through him or something.
Although the place was nearly deserted, they still took an out-of-the-way booth.
Toby had gotten a salad, but he fiddled with one of the fries they shared while watching one of the TVs showing some European soccer game.
The subtitles were in a language that Jake didn’t even recognize.
After a minute, he realized they were actually gibberish, closed captioning throwing up the occasional dollar sign and ampersand instead of anything intelligible.
He didn’t notice the girl until Toby stiffened across from him, his hand dropping the fry and moving to his knife.
Jake tried to focus, panic and adrenaline flooding his system. Maybe the ASC had come for them after all. Maybe they had been that good at keeping the Hawthornes’ faces off the news while they were setting up to take them out. Maybe Alice had betrayed them.
But when he turned to face the threat, it wasn’t six suited thugs with guns.
It was a short, heavyset girl in mismatched clothes, her lank dark hair a tangled mess down her shoulders and acne streaking her face.
She would have been unpleasantly forgettable, if she weren’t standing still and staring at Toby with the single-minded focus Jake had seen more often on Discovery Channel specials about sharks.
“Hi, Toby,” she said. Her voice was as flat and emotionless as her eyes. “You look good. Do you like my face?”
“Kayla.” Toby moved out of the booth. Jake started to struggle up out of his side too, before Toby stepped around and slid onto the bench beside him. Then he gestured to the seat across from them. “How did you find us?”
“I memorized your address.” She squeezed into the booth. “I’ve been watching with a few different faces ever since I got into town. That took me a few extra days. Had to make a stop. Victor’s dead, by the way.”
Toby drew a sharp breath. “Is that gonna be traced back to us?”
“Nah.” She shook her head, sharp and awkward. “He was on medical leave ’cause he couldn’t keep his pants zipped. No one will even check on him until he starts to stink.”
Toby’s jaw worked. “Did you leave evidence?”
“Sure did. Crusher killed him. They’ll find solid evidence of that.” With a curt laugh, her face lit up with unmistakable fierce, savage joy. The expression vanished the next second, leaving her face flat and empty again.
Kayla’s every motion, every word was off, and it made Jake’s skin crawl. “You’re from the camp.”
Those dead eyes moved to his face. “Little slow, ain’t he?
” The words were directed toward Toby, but the shapeshifter—Kayla, Toby had called her—didn’t look away from Jake’s face.
“Yeah, Toby and I go way back.” Then she turned her head, horror-movie slow, to Toby.
“Did you like my present? I put a lot of work into it. Postage wasn’t cheap. ”
As with everything she’d said, the words had zero inflection, no indication of significance, but Toby stiffened.
He stared at her in a way Jake had never seen him look at anyone: shock and incredulity, horror mixed with dawning anger, but also a touch of respect.
“You sent the tapes.” It wasn’t a question.
“You took longer than I expected,” she said, as though it meant nothing to her. “But you managed to make it out alive. Did you kill the Director?”
After several seconds, Toby said, “Yeah. I did.”
“And Crusher. Did you cut off his dick and shove it down his throat?” Her tone never changed, every word sounding like it had only the most perfunctory importance.
Toby pressed his lips in a thin line before he answered. “No, I left that part out.” His voice had become as clipped and emotionless as hers.
“Ah well,” Kayla said, “we only get some of what we want, right, Tobias?”
Toby’s eyes flickered to Jake, and he answered, “I have everything I want.”
“Good. You did me a big favor back there, but you owed me plenty, and I don’t have everything I want yet. Think we’re even?”
Toby let out a choked, incredulous laugh. “You lured us into a suicidal firefight that should’ve killed us. I don’t call that even.”
“Call it lucky.” She cocked her head, and glanced over the table, including Jake’s second slice of pizza, Toby’s handful of leftover fries, and both their Cokes. She might have been trying to see their weapon hands through the table. Then she raised her eyes. “You remember Lucky?”
Toby looked wary. “No.”
Her intent eyes never left Toby’s face. “Crusher was always trying to bribe us shifters to turn into you. He never got over you. You were his favorite.”
Toby’s expression had not changed, though his face had drained of color. He stared at her, with pinched lips, and did not ask.
“I’m not that stupid,” Kayla said. “Lucky was the only one dumb enough to take him up on it.”
Jake couldn’t breathe. Toby’s throat worked like he needed to swallow to get enough saliva to talk, then he asked, tone as remote as hers, “Did he survive?”
Kayla shrugged, a slight movement of her shoulders. “Not long.”
In the utter stillness that followed, she glanced over at Jake’s plate. “You gonna eat that?”
Jake pushed it across to her, and she fell on the half-eaten pizza, shoveling it into her mouth with unabashed efficiency. Jake took the time to regroup, moving his hand slowly under the table to find and squeeze Toby’s knee. Toby flinched and did not look at him, and Jake pulled his hand back.
When she had finished the last bite of crust, Jake asked, “What are you going to do now?”
Her mouth moved into a smile. “I’m going to kill some hunters.”
Toby’s breath caught, and he leaned forward. “Kayla . . . you can’t . . . You can’t kill humans.”
Her smile widened, no fear in her face. “Don’t be stupid, Tobias.
They’re not humans, they’re hunters.” She glanced at Jake.
“I have a list of capture teams and fucks who used to love working at the camp. Addresses too. They’ll keep me busy for a long time, especially if I take my time. ” She looked almost happy.
“Is Roger Harper or Alejandra Rodriguez on your list?” Jake clenched his bad hand into as much of a fist as he could manage with the cast. His gun wasn’t loaded with silver, but there was a silver knife in his boot.
He didn’t know if he could get to it in time, didn’t know if he could kill someone who was clearly Toby’s friend in front of him.
Her eyes followed his hand, narrowing. She lifted the fork Toby had left on her side of the booth. “Reach for me, and I’ll bury this in your gut.” It sounded less like a threat and more a bald statement of fact.
“The fuck you will,” Toby snapped, shifting into Jake’s space and pulling her attention away. Kayla gave him a coolly appraising look, then turned back to Jake.
“Independents like them are on the Director’s shit list. I don’t give a fuck about them.”
“Don’t do this, Kayla,” Toby said, quiet but intent. “You’re not that kind of monster.”
She huffed out something like a laugh. “Hell yeah I am. And so are you two, right? Or did you just throw a party for everyone inside the camp?”
In the silence that followed, she pushed herself out of the booth. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Tobias, but I hope I don’t see you again. I’m going to try to stay out of your way. I’ve called in my favors.” She glanced once more at Jake, then back to Toby. “He doesn’t hit you much, does he?”
Expressions flickered over Toby’s face, too quick for Jake to pin down amid the lurch and nausea in his own stomach. Whether it was the overall tension and the leftover queasiness from his damned concussion, or just that question alone, his pizza was about to make a reappearance.
“No,” Toby said. “No, he doesn’t.”
Looking satisfied, she gave Jake a fractional nod. “Keep watching out for him, Hawthorne. Out of all us monsters, he’s the one who most deserved to get out.” Then she turned her back and thumped away with heavy steps.
* * *
Jake waited a full minute after Kayla left the restaurant before he let out his breath. “No offense to your friend, but I am really fucking proud you turned out the way you did.”
“She’s not my friend,” Tobias said, automatic. His brow remained knit, attention fixed on the fork and empty plate across from them. “She didn’t have anyone to get her out,” he said quietly. “If you hadn’t . . . I could have been the same way.”
Jake snorted. “No fucking way.”
“You put a lot of work into me.” Six years, to be precise. Tobias glanced out the window, remembering how that street had first looked to him when he had been terrified every moment of the day, certain there would be no happy endings.
“You put a lot of work into me,” Jake retorted, and it sounded both knee-jerk and like he meant it.
Tobias took Jake’s good hand, their palms fitting together. “Here’s to all the miles ahead.”